


The World Keeps Sweet

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, F/F, Self-Harm, sad things and the abuse of commas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-11
Updated: 2012-08-11
Packaged: 2017-11-11 22:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/483484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You were told it was easy; quick cut, quick high, quick life. </p>
<p>No one told you she'd be involved, though. </p>
<p>Somewhere in the middle of a drabble and a oneshot...short, but filled with angst.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World Keeps Sweet

**Author's Note:**

> Last warning: self harm and lesbian face-slapping.

You’ve been informed it makes one feel better. You get a rush, you see God, everything seems okay, at least for a little bit, and look how simple it is! But above all, you have been told it helps you forget, and that is what catches you in the end, that is what scoops you up in this sticky-black net and won’t let you go. 

Because when you close your eyes, you see pincers snapping at human hearts and troll blood pushers, you see a comb that has been broken in your hair and a green-slick mouth, laughing and then screaming and then set in a snarl that is meant only for you. When you close your eyes, you watch a boy scream as he falls down, down, down, down, down, and you watch a girl laugh maniacally, a tongue poking between her lips, you see a woman with hair like yours shaking her head in disappointment and witness a wide-eyed horror that takes you a while to identify as your own. Nightmares play behind the frames of your wire glasses, demons from your dreams threatening to rise up and tear you into pieces, and you feel so terribly broken. You want it all to stop. You want to forget. 

And so you are sitting, you are sitting here with a shattered piece of something that you classify as a former slice of an eight-sided die, and you are watching the harsh white light glint off of it and you are wondering how best to go about this, and you are feeling an apprehension you feel that you should not have. This is easy, isn’t it? Shouldn’t it be? 

The skin of your arm is pale and grey, unbroken, seasick in its complexion and slightly blue-tinged when you are angry, or scared, or aroused. You have often looked at your skin, taken it for granted, poked at its imperfections and tugged at it to see how it would feel, but you have never set it up for anything like this, and it seems to be screaming at you in protest. The fabric of your shirt is rough against your chest, and you itch in a place that keeps moving before you can find it and satiate it. Never satisfied, never finished with, never ceasing. 

You wonder if you should be crying. 

You are slightly apprehensive, which does not surprise you so much as anger you, and you put the jagged piece to the unbroken skin of your forearm and then you drop it on the floor, quite by accident. You swear and you pick it up again, and behind your eyes you see a face with short, spiky hair and pointed teeth and amber eyes that reproach you for existing, and then you see an arrow pointing backwards and eight even number threes in a line, and you bring the die piece closer to your arm with clenched teeth and a pain in your chest cavity, but you don’t do it, you don’t bring it down all the way. 

“Fucking weak,” you’re saying out loud, and it’s as if the scene’s tilted up and away from you and you’re looking down on yourself saying “fucking weak” because that is what you. You are watching your hand clench and your finger-bone-joints go white with the stress of holding on so tightly. You are noticing your own slight trembling. You realize that there is a slight possibility that someone will have heard you, and you look over your shoulder to see that no one is there, no one has heard, no one has cared and no one will. So you bring the piece to your skin once, take it away, repeat the process twice more, and then after a few more repetitions of your new mantra you summon up the fucking courage and you drag the sharp piece of lucky die across your arm and watch as the line wells up with vile, cerulean filth that you must call your blood. You feel a line of pain shoot up your arm and make its way to your think pan, and you feel the natural instincts taking over, “oh, fuck, fuck, what have I done, no bleeding broken bad body no stop hurt bad stop,” your mind going into overdrive and your breaths catching, and oh, oh, oh, what you realize by the time it has passed is that you spent those precious seconds thinking about nothing. Nothing but the base instinct for self-preservation.

And it feels good. 

You sit back on your heels, and you suddenly feel unbearably tired. You wonder if it is a possibility to just curl up right here and sleep, sleep for sweeps and wait for the world to crumble into dust around you before you get up again and face it. You think that it’s not. But you are still tired. 

You are fascinated by your wound, the wound you have drawn on yourself with the piece of die that has fallen back to the floor, slick on one side with your essence. You watch it dribble blood down your arm, feel the warmth of the liquid as it flows. You pinch your arm and watch the cut pulse slightly in response. It is an alive thing, a live wire, and it jumps and shocks you when you touch it, so you touch it twice and then again for good measure. You swerved a little at the end, and so in turn the end of the breach staggers down some. The result is a crooked half-smile, one you think you’ve seen on her face before and one you wish you weren’t reminded of. 

Morbid captivation makes you unwatchful. 

Because she’s coming up behind you, but you don’t see it; you are the scene of the crime and it is you, and it is not until she screams expletives that you realize you are no longer alone. 

You fall backwards off your heels when you hear her, chainsaws screaming in her voice, and you frantically try to cover up your arm on impulse. But it is too late; she has witnessed the macabre scene and you will not be let off so easily, in fact you will not be let off easily at all as your ex-moirail grabs you by the wrist and bares her teeth in a strangely feral snarl, meant for you, meant to scare you, and it works. “What the fuck have you done?” she’s shouting, and you’re trying to get back from the words being flung at you but her grip makes it impossible, and she is ripping a piece of startlingly red fabric from the bottom of her own skirt and tying it around your arm, hiding your lovely-once-lovely wound away. You notice dimly it’s her favorite skirt. 

“I’m sorry,” you offer up, because you are scared and that is what makes you apologize. 

She does not seem to hear you, and when she finishes tying a tight knot she draws back and slaps you across the face, and then in her anger she picks up your die piece and tosses it into a corner viciously. It makes an empty clattering as it falls, send to gather dust and spider-webs, and you hope this is not your fate in the end. Your cheek hurts. Your arm hurts. Your blood pusher hurts. 

“You’re an idiot,” she’s saying furiously, and you know this to be true and yet you don’t know why you don’t care. Her next question is a viciously spat “Why?!” as she brandishes your own arm at you. You do not know how to answer, but you know you must, and so you try. 

You answer that it is because you do not know what to do. 

You answer that it is because you see bad things behind your eyes. 

You answer that it is because of her and how the rain drips off her hair when it falls. 

You answer that it is because of that boy that spiraled down, down, down, down, down, and the boy’s legs, which crunched when he hit the ground. 

You answer that it is because you hate yourself.

You answer that it is because you don’t know. 

And she stands and is stunned for you think a minute but could be several days and she does not know how to respond, and you think you make a snide remark about how she is never speechless but she swears at you with a hand to her forehead and tells you to shut up, shut up, shut up, she has to collect her thoughts, and she rambles on for a few more sentences before she finally pulls you to her and hugs you so tightly you almost choke. 

You think that this might be her intention for a panicked moment, until you realize that the voices in your head have gone quiet and for the first time in a long time you do not feel anything but the sensations around you, the rush of your hair over her shoulder when you move slightly to breathe better, and the soft sounds of her own ragged breathing, and something inside you explodes. And Marquise Spinneret Mindfang comes out of you and she flings herself at the window, and she dies, and you know who you are now. You know that you are Vriska, just Vriska, just Vriska Serket and you are in the arms of Kanaya Maryam and your breath catches at the simple realization. 

You think that you do not want to break your skin again because of her. You think that you would like to kiss this kind girl who is holding you, feel how her horns move under your hands. You think a lot of things, and none of them string together, but you know somehow that it does not matter. You just think, and you live, and you are, and you have small epiphanies and you push away images and you cry just a little before pulling yourself together. 

You think, and you know it’s all right as long as you’re with her.


End file.
